


to be the only one in the world (who knows it's not)

by thatiranianphantom



Series: we are a masterpiece [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bughead slowly making their way back to each other, But it will not be a varchie romance fic, F/M, I promise they will come back together, In the background I guess, Just with angst and yelling, Look this isn't a Varchie unfriendly fic, Minor Veggie and Choni, That is to say that there is no bad blood between them, They're in other relationships, Trying out something new folks, Wow my favorite, but it's not the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatiranianphantom/pseuds/thatiranianphantom
Summary: It's been 5 years, and things are different now.But then Hiram and Hermoine Lodge are killed, and FP Jones is wounded, and suddenly, it's five years ago once again.(Or your humble author writes things that are probably going to end up closer to canon than anything else she will ever write)End of Season 4/beginning of Season 5 speculation.
Relationships: Betty Cooper & Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Veronica Lodge/Reggie Mantle
Series: we are a masterpiece [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685578
Comments: 46
Kudos: 116
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	1. i can't find you in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> So, I generally have to force myself to write. It's just a thing. And I have at LEAST one glaringly unfinished fic for Riverdale already, so what is the logical thing for me, an adult, to do? 
> 
> Why, start another chaptered fic, of course.
> 
> I am idiot. 
> 
> Also, and this is a super nitpicky thing, but why is AO3 putting random spaces between punctuation? I assure you, dear reader, they are not there when I copy and paste this garbage from the google doc. 
> 
> Also, all music quotes are from Heart Shaped Wreckage by the cast of Smash, which really was the whole inspiration behind this thing.

_I'm not scared to tell the truth_

_i've been to hell and back, and i went with you_

_ Five Years Later _

Half a decade passes, and Betty is pretty sure things should have changed by now. 

Which felt an insane thought, given that  _ everything _ had changed. 

But Riverdale was a fixed point in space and time, it seemed. Despite everything that happened here, the town remained in a permanent stasis. 

The same people, same houses, same schools, same stores, same mundane hum of normal life, same undercurrent of tension that forever roiled beneath the surface.

Betty wonders if she should find it comforting or disturbing.

* * *

  
  


Coming from Riverdale certainly made college a change. 

New York was everything Riverdale was not. Life moved so quickly around her, college, work, life. 

Sometimes Betty felt like a stone in a rushing river, standing still while life moved around her. 

And sometimes she’s grateful for the buzz, sometimes she lets it fill her and consume her, reminding herself of the new Betty, of who she had become.

She supposes college gave her the opportunity it was supposed to. 

The explosion of her life by her own design right before graduation had left her alone. She blamed nobody but herself. Jughead was gone, the relationship ruined. He left for Iowa State, and Betty grieved for two full months. She moved to New York early, unable to face FP and Jellybean, and spent nearly two full months in a mostly empty apartment, crying. It was difficult to quantify exactly what Jughead meant to her after three years together, after all they’d been through, after being a high school couple living together. Betty felt like half of herself had been cleaved off, and the rest was left raw, bleeding.

The look of devastation on Jughead’s face after she had told him had imprinted itself in her brain, inscribed itself on her DNA. She saw it everywhere, even on stranger’s faces. And every time, it feels like another piece of herself is chipped away. 

  
  


Losing Veronica hurt almost as much. So many times in the last five years, she had reached for the phone and dialed her best friend’s number out of instinct, always catching herself before hitting “call”. Losing Veronica left an equally real hole in her life. B and V had been together since sophomore year, and Veronica, too, made up such a huge part of her identity. 

And Archie...Betty hadn’t spoken to Archie in five years. Her oldest friend, now a memory.

* * *

She went home a few times in the last five years, but stayed at a hotel, and left as soon as possible. 

Her mother visited, sometimes. FP and Jellybean visited once, a year or so ago, and knowing that they didn’t hate her soothed something deep inside her. 

The twins visit sometimes as well. Polly has been gone for years, still lost to the Farm, in whatever incarnation it now existed in, and a kind relative of the Coopers had taken the twins in. Cheryl and Toni still saw them frequently, and their (foster) parents let Betty and her mother spend as much time with Juni and Dag as they wanted. 

But Riverdale hurt to be in, and while New York always felt like home-adjacent, it was better than the alternative. 

So maybe, when she had viewed college as a fresh start, a reinvention, it wasn’t purely out of want, but out of necessity. 

She had found a job at a local magazine. It was fine for now, not what she wanted but satisfactory. It filled her, but not all the way. 

That was a pretty apt theme for her life in general, Betty thinks. 

An arm loops around her waist, giving it a light squeeze, and she smiles. 

At twenty-three, Betty thinks maybe the all-consuming love she felt for Jughead at eighteen wasn’t really how love was supposed to be. It certainly wasn’t how it was with Derek, and she tried to wrap her mind around the fact that maybe, that was okay, that a mature, grounded, somewhat sedate love was what real love was. 

Derek helps her mind calm, she guesses. 

He’s a journalism major. Tall, handsome, kind, blonde. Alice Cooper’s dream. He was good to her, had been in the year they’d been dating. They met at a group study session, where he had tripped over someone’s laptop cord in an effort to sit next to her, and let loose with a stream of some of the most creative cursing without actual curse words she had ever heard. The library patrons had glared, but she had giggled.

She’s dated a few people in college, here and there. Made a few friends. Some of them stuck, some of them didn’t. It’s okay. 

Betty’s learned not to expect too much. 

Derek had recently asked her to move in with him. She had said she’d think about it, and not understood how her gut gave a twist.

But that was life. And life moved forward.

Until the call came, and then everything flooded back. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


It was quick, they said. A car accident, on both ends. Direct impact, no survivor on the first one.

The second one, though. He was in a coma.    
  


It was intentional. Someone was trying to kill them. 

And they had succeeded. 

Hiram and Hermoine Lodge were dead, and FP Jones was in a coma, full extent of damage unknown.

Her mother is frantic over the phone, and Betty has a ticket back home booked before she fully comprehends what it means. 

She hangs up the phone, breathing heavy, sleeves pulled over her hands, and Derek pulls her in close and books another ticket back to Riverdale without question.

He holds her hand on the train home. 

He grabs her bags and waves off her protests. 

He gently guides her head onto his shoulder. 

* * *

  
  
  


The first flashback starts at the hospital, as she sits beside her mother, who is holding a sobbing Jellybean.

A rueful smile, a bruised and stitched face. 

_ I guess we won’t be running for student council. _

* * *

  
  


He gets in three hours later. 

Her heart pounds as he takes in Derek, sitting beside her. She can’t scrutinize the look in his eyes, but he looks...different. Not good different, not bad, just different. Straighter, maybe. More filled out. Maybe even a little less haunted. 

His hair still flops down over his forehead, long on top and unconfined without the beanie that she absolutely cannot think about. 

They shake hands. It’s absurd. His hand is warm in hers, and she feels her mother and Jelly’s eyes on her. 

He shakes hands with Derek too, who gives him a genuine smile and apologizes for them meeting like this. 

It’s fine.

But something pulses under it, something Betty hasn’t experienced in five years. 

* * *

  
  
  


She meets his girlfriend. 

Her name is Hannah.

She’s pretty. She’s nice. She holds Jughead’s hand, and it’s fine, because it’s been five years, and none of them are the same. Betty feels no hold on him, and he none on her.

So Betty greets Hannah. She compliments Hannah’s shoes, and the girl grins and hugs her, tells her it’s a high compliment coming from someone so gorgeous. 

* * *

  
  
  


Betty sees her in the waiting room. 

Her back is straight. 

Her eyes are dry. 

But her face is contorted in pain. 

Every instinct that exists in Betty wants to go to Veronica, to hug her, to comfort her as they’ve done so many times before.

But Veronica looks up, and brown eyes meet green. 

Veronica stood, and walked to the door. 

Betty met her eyes, and Veronica’s gaze doesn’t waver. Her eyes track Betty’s until she walks straight past Betty without a word. 

Betty deflates.

It’s what she expected, though. 

Things are different now. 

* * *

  
  


Hannah and Jughead are staying at the same hotel as Derek and Betty. He sleeps quickly, slinging an arm around her waist, but Betty’s mind whirs, going over the day again and again. Why had someone tried to kill FP? Why had they killed Veronica’s parents, why  _ now _ , after five years of inactivity? 

The investigative side of her is darkly fascinated, and a bolt of energy shoots through her, a feeling she barely recognizes. She reaches for the notebook she keeps in her bedside table and scribbles down all she can remember, warmth spreading all over her, warmth not created by her boyfriend’s arm cuddling her. 

Sometime around 1 in the morning, she slips out of bed, padding softly downstairs to the hotel’s 24 hour cafe and bar. It seems a fairly insane thing for a Riverdale hotel to have, but she’s grateful.

She’s been sitting for only minutes when another body slides in next to hers. 

She recognizes it in a moment. She would have known it in her dreams. 

He stiffens beside her, so she forces a smile. 

“Hey, Jughead.”

He gives a short nod. “Hello, Betty.”

They fall into silence for a moment, and she tries to gauge the situation. Is he still mad at her? She wouldn’t blame him. But it’d been five years. She misses  _ them _ , but not, she reminds herself, the romantic them. The mystery-solving duo, True Detective and Nancy Drew. Maybe that’s someone Jughead had left behind. Maybe she had too. 

“How have you been,” she tries. It seems a fairly safe thing to say, and she’s somewhat relieved when he gives her a nod. 

“Fine. Today notwithstanding, I guess. You?”

She nods back. It’s not quite a conversation, but she’ll take it. “Same.”

He looks down into a coffee, and she realizes how far apart they’re sitting, but doesn’t dare try to sit closer. And why should she? They’re not even friends now. 

“I’m sorry about your dad, Jughead.” 

His mouth twitches up into an almost-smile. “Thanks. Think he’ll be okay?”

“Doctors seem hopeful. Cautiously, I mean. So that’s good.”

He nods again. “Yeah, that’s good.”

And then silence permeates again. Betty breaks it, because that  _ should _ be her job. The silence, the awkwardness, that’s her fault. 

“Hannah seems great.”

“She is.” 

It’s not offering much, but Betty feels she needs to show an interest. Hannah’s a part of Jughead’s life now. The biggest part. And they won’t be fighting over him. Why would they, anyway? Hannah is who he loves now, and they’re in the past. Like Derek is who she loves now. 

  
“Did you guys go to school together?”

“Yeah. She’s an education major. Just graduated.”

“You’ve been together long?”

“About seven months. We met at a cafe.”

She gives a short laugh before she can stop herself. “You went to a cafe?”

It triggers a real smile this time. “The wifi went out at the campus. I spent an hour walking around the hallways looking for a signal, but no dice.”

She gives a joking inhale. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” 

“There were so many lattes. I was intimidated. Coffee is coffee, right?”

“You always were a black coffee kind of guy. I guess some things never change, huh?”

The smile drops off his face. “Things have changed, Betty.” 

Her heart sinks a bit. Too much faith in a moment of connection, she supposes. They don’t connect anymore, that’s not who they are. 

“Right. I guess so.” This time the pause is long, and Jughead is the one to break it. She takes it as a good sign.

“Derek seems nice, too.” 

“He is. I like him.” 

“Good. I’m glad.” 

He’s glad. She views it as a good thing. Certainly better than him actively wishing for her demise. Again, she wouldn’t blame him. But Jughead had always been the bigger person. 

“So what are you doing down here, Jughead?”

He shifts on the tiny chair. “Taking advantage of the first class service, and not at all depressing, one in the morning lighting, of course.” 

It’s almost a joke. It brings levity, and levity is perhaps what gives her the courage to push it forward. 

  
“Not going over the day again and again?”

He looks at her, then, actually looks at her. His blue gaze meets her eyes, and it’s the first time he looks like the Jughead she knew...before. 

“Were you?”

He’s baiting her, and she knows it. He’s going to make her say it first, make her be the first to dip her toe into the water of what they once were. Back into Betty and Jughead, Teen Detectives. But they’re not teens anymore, and she has ruined so much. Jughead has his life together now, it appears. Can she upset that? 

Perhaps she won’t, she reasons. It’s been half a decade. They are both different people now. Now they aren’t Betty and Jughead, as such. Now she is simply Betty, and he is simply Jughead. Or maybe they’re Betty and Derek and Jughead and Hannah. And that’s the way it should be. It’s a strong foundation. One a little mystery is not likely to upset.

So she gives a confirmatory nod. 

“Yeah...a little. It doesn’t make sense, you know? Two accidents, people who shared a past, same day? Too much coincidence to be a coincidence.” 

She sees it then, clear as day. His eyes light up, and he’s the Jughead she knew at 18. 

“I thought so too. And it’s not like they had no enemies.”

“One may say they had many enemies. And it’s...it’s still Riverdale. Are there coincidences here?”

He huffs out a breath. “Not too many, Betty. Never has been.” 

He says her name more gently, curved around the letters. That warmth from before spreads over her from her toes up, and she conjures up the thought of her boyfriend, sleeping a few floors up, waiting for her. 

But then Jughead reaches into his pocket and produces a bent notebook, old and frayed, and her heart skips a bit. 

She’d given him that, what feels like a million years ago. She’d written him a note before leaving it for him, on the front cover.

_ So you’ll stop writing all over my magazines. Love you. B.  _

She wonders if it’s still there, but it hardly matters now. 

“You wrote down all your observations?” 

He grins ruefully. “Old habits die hard.” 

She matches his smile and produces her own notebook. “I guess so.” 

A beat passes between them for a moment, and she doesn’t think she’s imagining it when he shifts incrementally closer to her. 

“So, what do you say, Cooper? Is it another Riverdale mystery to solve?”

It’s really the oddest feeling that takes over Betty. After feeling like half a person for so,  _ so  _ long, she feels just the tiniest bit more whole. 

“Will Hannah want to join?” 

She regrets it as soon as it’s out, because it kills the tiny bit of space they had closed, when Jughead shifts back from her. 

She curses her own stupidity, but Hannah is part of his life now. There is no more Betty and Jughead. So maybe he wants her there, and Betty is not going to stand in the way. She is not going to destroy things for him again. She pictures the three of them solving a mystery, and it leaves an uncomfortable clenching feeling inside her. 

It also leaves a rather palpable sense of relief when she shakes his head. 

“Mysteries aren’t really her thing, I think. Does...does Derek want to join in?”

Later on, she’ll do her very best not to analyze why she doesn’t even think about before shaking her head no. 

“Not his thing either. We can...I mean, it can just be the two of us.” 

He smiles at this, he actually smiles, and another tiny piece falls back into place.

  
“Okay.” It’s not a lot, but it’s enough for her.

“Okay,” and this time, the smile spreads and it’s real.

“Jughead Jones, looks like we’ve got ourselves another Riverdale mystery.”

_ remind what we were before _

_ when we said you are mine and i am yours  _


	2. i can't fix this on my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The diner looks the same. Pop greets them with a hug, and offers to bring them “the usual”. Jughead spreads their findings out over the table, and Betty is transported to eight years ago again, as if no time has passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, there is rumored to be writers who carefully plan, write, have their work edited, rewrite, reconsider, make multiple drafts and take their time in posting.
> 
> And then there's me, who bangs on the keyboard until the words run out, gives it a cursory read and spell check, and posts. 
> 
> I need to adjust my method, but you know, anything that requires effort.....
> 
> Anyway, here's chapter 2/3. 
> 
> I am about 1000 words deep into the next chapter of no one else is singing my song, if anyone is reading that one too, so look for it in the next few days.

_i don't know much, but i know myself_

_and i don't want to love anybody else_

* * *

The funeral is typically lavish. Betty supposes she shouldn’t have expected anything else from the Lodges, but it’s a two hour affair with a catered lunch on the Lodge estate after the service. 

  
The will reading is done before the service, and by all indications, the late Lodges bequeath everything to Veronica. No real surprise. 

The woman in question sits in the front pew, stone faced. Reggie rubs a thumb back and forth on her hand and she sits ramrod straight.

  
The eulogy she gives is well written, well said.

But Betty knew her best friend. And it’s been five years, but she knows it still. It’s a performance. A few tears fall, but the look in her former friend’s eyes is hollow. Betty so badly wants to know what she’s thinking. 

She wants to sit beside her best friend, hold her hand, offer her shoulder for Veronica’s tears.

  
But she had kissed Archie. Five years ago, she went on a date with Archie, and in doing that, she relinquished all her rights, forever. 

* * *

  
  


Hannah doesn’t come to the service.

She’s here to support Jughead, but this is not her place, and she knows that. 

She finds Betty at the cafe the morning after Betty and Jughead strike their deal, greets her with a quick hug, buys her a coffee, and tells Betty they need to get together soon to “complain about you know who together.” 

It’s said in jest, but the girl’s request seems completely genuine, and Betty feels she has no choice but to agree. 

“You know who” says he’ll pick her up at her mother’s house, they’ll rideshare to the service, and since it’s conveniently located on Lodge property, they can “do a bit of sleuthing after.” 

It’s more than a casual sense of deja vu when Jughead appears at the door of her childhood bedroom. The suit he wears is more formal than the last time they did this, but Betty feels transported back eight years, when things felt so much simpler. 

He tells her she looks pretty. It’s a simple thing, offhanded, but her heart pounds. 

(Derek kisses her before she leaves, tells her he loves her sweetly, and Betty can’t quite figure out why she feels like she’s lying as she returns the sentiment). 

  
  
  


Technology has evolved since Jason Blossom’s funeral, because they manage to copy a few emails found on Hiram’s open laptop to a flash drive. They gather a few of the biggest files from his desk and make themselves scarce. 

In the car, he turns her and asks “Pops?”

* * *

  
  
  


The diner looks the same. Pop greets them with a hug, and offers to bring them “the usual”. Jughead spreads their findings out over the table, and Betty is transported to eight years ago again, as if no time has passed.

They theorize, they pore over documents, they highlight and discard, and she’s sixteen again, breathless over a new mystery and more excited than she’s been in years.

(They part at their respective hotel room doors with a smile, and she feels it all the way to her toes as she slides into bed with Derek).

  
  
  


It becomes, while not exactly a regular occurence, certainly a more than one-off event. Betty spends her days with the twins, visiting her mother, finishing assignments for class, and some of her nights are spent with Jughead, going over case notes.

They find more than a few threatening emails to both Hiram and Hermoine and spend two days scouring the internet for every detail they can find about the senders.

One goes by the initials “GP” and turns up nothing, but they keep looking.

  
  
  


There’s a conversation. It needed to be had, to be voiced, but it’s hellishly awkward regardless. Or rather, it’s a follow-up on their earlier conversation.

“You’re with Hannah,” she states. 

Face inscrutable, he nods. “And you’re with Derek.”

“Yeah. So this...this isn’t like it was.” 

His brow furrows.

“No, it’s not, Betty. In a lot of ways, not the least of which is the lack of feelings anymore.”

It’s a veritable knife to her heart, but it shouldn’t be. It’s been five years, and he doesn’t have feelings for her anymore.

Which is fine, really. Because she’s over him. 

It’s just nostalgia, what she feels when she’s around him.

  
She’s moved on and things are different. 

“It’s the same for you, right, Betty? Because if it’s not, maybe this is...not such a good idea.”

_ That  _ idea is unacceptable to her. She has him in her life again, and she is clinging on with both hands. 

“No, it’s not an issue, Jug. No feelings anymore. Not on your end. And certainly, not on my end.”

He levels her with a steady look, and she refuses to blush on principle.

“I’m serious, Jughead. I’ve moved on, so have you. So we can...just be friends. Friends who sleuth together, solve mysteries together, you know what they say.” 

He regards her for a moment, then his mouth quirks in a smile.

“Not sure that’s the exact quote, Betts. But I’m in.” 

* * *

  
  
  


They keep in regular contact, texting back and forth about a new lead, or a promising highlight in one of Hermoine’s old mayoral documents. 

Betty’s never sure how far to push it. Having him back in her life feels wonderful, like no time has passed, but it  _ has _ . And she is never far away from the fact that she broke his heart. She did that to him. They could have been together, were it not for her. 

So she’s never sure where the line is, but one day, she sends him a text that has nothing to do with the case. It’s a psychology joke she found online, and something like that should not make her heart pound as she waits for his response. 

_ I went on a skiing trip with a group of psychiatrists, I've never seen so many Freudians slip. _

It’s only a few moments later her phone dings, and she finds a picture of a shirt emblazoned with the words “Go Freud yourself”. She giggles aloud, and the metaphorical ice is broken. 

From then on, they exchange texts most hours of the day. He’ll send her criminal psych memes and puns, she’ll text him jokes and stray observations about the still-pervasive weirdness of Riverdale.

( _ Really, Jug. One good social worker is all it would take to implode this town.)  _

* * *

  
  


(Hannah asks him once, what is on his phone that he’s always laughing at, and he tells her he signed up for a joke-a-day app. He feels the lie as soon as he says it, and he’s not sure why it slipped out in the first place.) 

* * *

  
  


There’s a different energy between them, Betty thinks.

She’s known Jughead for years, since she was 5 years old, and he came to school with his too-large crown beanie falling over his eyes and well-worn converse with his toes poking through the holes in the front. 

But for the five years they spent apart, Betty has never existed without Jughead, in some capacity. In a lot of ways, being with him feels homey, comforting, familiar. 

But in another way, something crackles between them. Something draws them together, like magnets, something that feels impossible to resist. 

And even that is not new. Being with Jughead has always felt like that. 

It’s maddening. It’s exhilarating. It’s too much, and not enough at once. 

And if Betty stops to think about it too much, well then, she may wonder why being with Derek feels so...different. So much more sedate, more...ordinary. 

No, that’s not an avenue they can ever pursue again, so she does her best to stamp the thought down and not think about it. 

Not even on the night they’re at Pops, sharing a milkshake, laughing, when Derek calls. She presses the decline button without hesitation and perhaps scoots a little closer to Jughead.

* * *

  
  


After the last dead end, they can’t ignore it anymore. 

They need to talk to Veronica. 

Or, more precisely,  _ Jughead _ needs to talk to Veronica.

See, the thing is, Betty has no best friend now. She has a few, what she may call, tangential friends. Friends she can go out for Friday night drinks with, friends who comment on her Facebook pictures, friends who she may occasionally spend a weekend with. 

But if she’s having a hard day, if something amazing happens to her and she can’t wait to share it, if her mother calls and she’s fuming?

Then, there’s nobody.

There was, before, Veronica for all these, and she misses her viscerally.

It’s what makes her stupid enough to walk with Jughead up to the Lodge lodge, and watch Veronica beckon him in.

It’s also what makes her just hopeful enough to try to start a whole sentence. 

She gets no further than Veronica’s name before a perfectly manicured hand is held up in front of her.

“No, thank you,  _ Elizabeth _ . I know what you’re trying to do here. You want us to talk, you want me to invite you in, and you probably want me to forgive you. But, see, that’s not for my sake. You want me to forgive you to absolve your own guilt.”

Veronica shakes her head and starts closing the door in Betty’s face.

“That’s not my problem anymore,” she says as the door swings shut.

(Betty cries like it’s five years ago, but she deserves this.)

  
  


* * *

  
  


They get a lead on GP. He’s a mobster, fittingly Italian, something her father had mentioned in passing as an “idle threat, one of many”, 

Perhaps not so idle, as they begin to dig into GP’s past. There’s a campaign to topple someone he refers to as “not worthy of the position”, a campaign he is leading, that seems to go silent directly after the Lodges were killed. 

  
It’s a good lead, and as Jughead says, it warrants a day off, on their last week in Riverdale.   


So she allows him to lead her to Sweetwater River, and the swimming hole. 

She has not brought a bathing suit, and the water has taken on a slightly greenish tinge. 

She takes one look at it and the Alice Cooper inside her takes over. 

“No way, Jug. Not happening,” 

He’s already tugging off his shirt. She forces herself not to look as her heartrate speeds up. 

“Come on, Betts. It’ll be  _ fun _ . When was the last time you had fun that wasn’t dictated by a color-coded schedule?”

She raises a hand to her heart dramatically.

“You wound me, Forsythe.” 

He shoots her a boyish grin and jerks his head toward the water. Resolutely, she takes a seat along the water’s edge. 

“You swim to your heart’s content, Jug. I’ll sit here and avoid Hepatitis.” 

He groans, but pulls his shirt back on. 

“You drive a bargain, Cooper. Let’s do something else.” 

He stands and offers her a hand up. 

She accepts, but apparently hadn’t noticed the glint in his eyes, because suddenly, her hand is being grasped hard and is being used as leverage to yank her into the cold water. 

She comes up, sputtering, and is greeted with Jughead’s grinning face. He looks exceptionally pleased with himself, and it releases something akin to a flutter in her belly. 

“You look proud of yourself,” she huffs and he grins.

“Sacrifices needed to be made to reintroduce fun into your life. By force, as it turns out,” he laughs. 

She schools her face into the most angry expression she can manage and lowers her voice, while her feet frantically tread water.

“Jughead Jones, you do not know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

She makes as if she’s swimming to the shore, and his guard drops for a minute.

But a minute is all the leverage she needs before she thrusts herself at him, putting her hands on his shoulders and forcing him under the water for a moment.

He’s a great swimmer, as she remembers. The best of the group, so he comes up sputtering and biting back a laugh.

“You fight dirty, Betts.” 

She waves a hand in the air. “No way. Fighting dirty would be doing this.

Slapping her hand against the water, she sends a torrent of water at his face.

He’s inactive only a moment, before he sends one back, and that’s all it takes for an all-out water fight to emerge. 

It’s minutes or hours or perhaps days later when they finally drag themselves to the rocks again, laying down in the sun to dry.

She lets the silence lie for a moment, and then sits up, with him following suit.

“Thanks for today, Jug. Hate to admit it, but you’re right. Fun has been gone for awhile.”

He smiles, a real smile. “Anytime, Cooper.”

She looks down at her now very stained sundress and huffs out a breath.

“If Alice Cooper could see me now.” She affects her mother’s stern tone. “‘Why are you looking so shabby, Elizabeth?’ Today, she may have a point.”

Jughead snorts in derision. “Not a chance, Betty Cooper. There is nowhere I could drag you and nothing you could do where you wouldn’t look beautiful.” 

Maybe it’s only her. It must be only her. Surely, he didn’t mean anything by it.

But for her, it changes something in the air. That crackling between them, it’s louder. Deafening, almost. 

Elizabeth Cooper is not much for snap decisions, as evidenced by the last one she made absolutely blowing up in her face and destroying every significant relationship she had. 

But snap decisions were such for a reason. 

And  _ something _ had changed between them.

So she doesn’t think. She doesn’t think and just does, and before either of them can fully process what’s happening, she’s straddling Jughead and her lips are on his.

* * *

  
  


It’s not their best kiss. She’d be hard pressed to say what is, but it feels...like everything. Like glitter, exploding inside of her. Like an acknowledgement of something. Like it was before.

And she feels it, she  _ does _ , she knows it. 

How long, that she’s not sure. But as she pulls back for breath, it’s his lips that chase hers. 

It  _ happens _ , she knows it. 

(It’s the very thought she’ll turn over in her head thousands of times, till she doubts it herself).

* * *

  
  


The moment ends abruptly, just as it started. She’s pushed off his lap, not hard, but enough to pull her out of the kiss with sufficient force. 

Jughead’s face is stricken. His pupils are blown wide, his hair askew. 

He regards her and his expression burns itself into her consciousness.

He looks  _ betrayed _ . 

* * *

  
  


When he speaks, it’s a whisper.

“You said you...you said you didn’t feel like that anymore.”

It burns into her, his tone, his face, his stiff posture.

It hurts her, and she created this  _ again _ . She brings destruction and hurt to him, no matter what she does. She hurts him again and again. 

She tries to reach out to him, but he recoils, and that pains her too. 

  
  


“You said you didn’t have feelings for me, Betty, you  _ promised! _ ” 

“I thought I didn’t…” It's a meek offering. She was lying then and she’s lying now, it’s clear. At least to her, because those feelings never died, did they?

Five years later, she’s still in love with him.

Ten years from now, she’ll still be in love with him.

Fifty years from now, old and gray, she’ll be just as completely in love with him as she is today. 

The thought is the most exhilarating thing she’s ever felt, because it’s the first thing she feels down to the core of her being, and it cuts through the white noise of the last five years. 

  
  


Jughead jumps up and she tries to jump after him, but he slaps her hand away with a cry.

“You can’t…you can’t  _ do  _ this, Betty.  _ I  _ can’t do this. I have a...holy shit, I have a girlfriend. You can’t  _ do  _ this!” 

“Jug, I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t! Just…” He claws at his hair, and she misses the beanie. She misses who he was, but she still loves who he is. 

“It’s been five damn years, Betty. And nothing’s changed, has it?”

She looks down, and the shame on her cheeks is all the answer he needs. 

He grabs his shoes and frantically feels for his keys. She stands there, listless and feeling more naked than if she actually were. 

“There’s a bus that goes back to Pops every half hour. You’ll be able to get back?”

It’s a question, and she nods. 

He jerks his head in her direction. 

“I just...I can’t do this. Stay away from me, Betty. Don’t come near me, or my girlfriend, ever again. This is finished.” 

And then he’s gone, and the only thing that swirls around her head is “Yes. Yes, it is.” 

* * *

_so let's break the spell and lift the curse_

_remember how we fell for each other_

_head first_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	3. let the broken pieces go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But she’d kissed Jughead.
> 
> She’d cheated on Derek, stepped out on her significant other. 
> 
> She hadn’t just done this once. She’d done it twice.
> 
> And it was wrong. She was wrong. 
> 
> But the thing was, it didn’t feel wrong. 
> 
> It felt like something falling into place. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL. 
> 
> Here we are at the ending. 
> 
> I hope y'all have enjoyed, this is probably the closest my writing will get to what Season 5 will be. 
> 
> Also, in writing so many post 4x17 fics, by the time this all actually blows up on the show, my mind will still be saying "Betty has suffered enough for her mistakes!"

* * *

_ I can't find you in the dark  
Will we get back to who we are?  
And I can't fix this on my own  
Our love is still the best thing I've ever known _

* * *

The meetings start next week. 

It’s not just for Derek. She has a few catch-up meetings to get to as well. In New York. 

Her home - well, home-adjacent. 

But is Riverdale home either? 

The place feels forever tainted with what happened here. What she survived.

New York was to be a clean start. And it was. 

For five years, it was. But it always felt...different. It felt muted, unreal. The same way her relationship with Derek felt. 

Betty had assumed for years that this was a state of normal, and god knows normal was something she wasn’t accustomed to. So this was how she was supposed to feel. This is what happiness feels like. 

That rush when solving a mystery was a response to trauma. A self-preservation tool. And lots of people drifted apart after high school. It’s not like she needed Veronica in her life. 

And Jug...everything feels bigger in high school. It was perfectly normal for that feeling of all consuming love to be something teenage Betty left behind. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, surely. 

No, the muted, sedate feelings she has for Derek are the way it’s supposed to be in a real adult relationship. 

And she was happy.

Objectively, this was what happiness felt like. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


But she’d kissed Jughead.

She’d cheated on Derek, stepped out on her significant other. 

She hadn’t just done this once. She’d done it twice.

And it was wrong.  _ She _ was wrong. 

But the thing was, it didn’t feel wrong. 

It felt like something falling into place. 

It felt nothing like the kiss with Archie, what felt like a decade ago. Then, it wasn’t so much the kiss itself that ruined everything. 

No, it was her  _ needing  _ to go out with Archie in the first place. The fact that she needed to test what she felt about Jug. That she needed to see if Jug was good enough to continue their relationship. 

Where would they be if that had never happened? 

Would they have gone to college together? Ate pizza on the dorm room floor, solved every mystery in Connecticut? 

Not like it matters now, she guesses. It’s a life she no longer has a right to think about. 

And, by extension, whatever that kiss may have unlocked in her, it was over. He’d never speak to or look at her again, so it was done. 

They were over. 

* * *

  
  
  


Betty doesn’t have many Riverdale sources left. 

So, to say it’s a bit of a shock when one of them calls her at 4am three days before she’s supposed to go home is a gross understatement. 

He tells her GP, their number one suspect, is coming to town tomorrow, and that is intimidating enough, but the next sentence chills her.

“He’s coming to finish the job.” 

Betty can hear her heartbeat in her ears as she processes what that means.

Veronica. 

* * *

  
  


The plan comes to her, and if she’s honest, her own safety is not a primary concern. 

She’s taken down multiple serial killers, including her own father. She can handle it.

And in a bit of a starkly honest moment, does she really even care if she can’t? 

No, she’ll be fine. Because her safety is not the bottom line.

He’s coming for Veronica. It’s the only way. 

Hiram Lodge was a mob boss, he had many enemies. This was not the first attempt on his life, but it was the first successful one. And it had taken FP down too. 

So they could safely assume GP was dangerous, and he was prepared. 

And that takes her to Jughead’s door, forces the words out when his face falls at the sight of her.

“We have a chance tomorrow, Jughead. We can bait him.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


They do. 

Her source feeds him bad info, tells him to meet them in the speakeasy, under the guise of meeting Veronica about a rum purchase. 

The police are on their side, having long since ceded investigations to them, since Betty’s teenage years. 

They surround the location, hidden in the shadows. 

Betty dons a black wig and a string of pearls, and plans her exit. Jughead barely looks at her. He barks out directions, he perfunctorily asks about elements of the plan, but he doesn’t meet her eyes. 

It’s five minutes to go time and she is finally getting into position, when she finds his hand laying gently on her arm. And suddenly, she’s staring into blue eyes. 

“Be safe,” is all he says.

She doesn’t dare interpret it as anything more than professional concern. Nostalgia, at best, only Betty hates nostalgia. Nostalgia led to the Archie date that blew up her life. Nostalgia ruined the best relationship she’s ever had, so she hates it.

The grass is never greener in the past, it’s a goddamn minefield.

* * *

  
  


GP brings a measly two men with him. Betty almost laughs. 

They surround him, and he backhands her. 

It’s comparatively tiny, absolutely meaningless in the long haul, and he’s apprehended with his cronies.

It’s laughably easy for someone who has been chased through the forest for sport.

Perhaps that was the way the real world worked. 

She’s handed an ice pack in the shape of a turtle, and Jughead sweeps his eyes up and down her. 

It feels like a victory.

* * *

  
  


She returns to her hotel room that night.

Derek has sweetly ordered her favorite foods. He asks her about the arrest, and she gives him the barest details. It’s enough for him. He slides up behind her, kissing down her neck. She waits for the butterflies to explode in her stomach, wills them to appear. But they don’t. Butterflies are a first love thing, they’re not real. Jug, and their first love. Maybe that wasn’t real either. 

She turns her head and kisses him back. She’ll make this okay. This is going to be okay.

After, he wraps his arms around her waist as he falls asleep. 

Derek has always been a heavy sleeper. They’re opposites, in that way.    
  


( _ In many ways,  _ her mind jeers treacherously.)

So the knock doesn’t wake him. 

She, however, startles at the sound of a particularly heavy gust of wind, so the soft knock sends her to her feet.

She’s at the door before they have a chance to knock twice.

He looks bedraggled. Hair askew, clothes rumpled, and yet, still beautiful. 

His eyes are angry, but full of unshed tears as he looks at her. 

“You could have died today” is all he offers. 

She nods. “But I didn’t. It was a controlled takeover. I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look at all reassured.

He’s been up for hours, she can tell, turning the incident over again and again in his mind. And not the arrest. No, for them, the arrest was small potatoes. 

He’s thinking about the kiss. 

And that feels like a win. It wasn’t nothing to him. He felt it too. 

And he kissed her back. 

But now he’s standing in front of her room, as angry as she’s ever seen him, so she can’t think of a way this ends well. 

“ _ How _ ,” he rasps, “ _ how could you do that? _ ”

She senses, correctly, that he is not looking for an answer. 

He paces in the hotel hallway. Her fingertips press into her palms.

(It’s not before. She will not do it.)

“I was doing  _ fine _ , Betty. I had finally...I had finally moved on. And I knew, I knew coming back to this godforsaken town would screw everything up. I knew seeing you would...but I’d hoped…”

He cuts off, and huffs out a breath. He can’t articulate what he’s trying to say. Jug, her (no, not  _ her _ ) ever verbose Jug was struggling for words. 

She steps towards him, lays a hand on his arm.

Like that time in a dark diner, at midnight, nearly six full years ago. 

_ “Kiss your girlfriend.” _ It was smiling. Teasing. 

And the memory is tainted.

* * *

  
  


For her and for him too, as his rips his arm away like he’s been burned. 

“I have a damn  _ girlfriend _ , Betty!”

“I know.”

“And I...love her.” 

The pause is definitely there, and the tone is halting and unsure. Like her, with her own happiness. 

Objectively, this was happiness.

By any stretch of the imagination, what Hannah and Jughead had was love. 

But the pause. 

Inside the pause lies all the late nights spent trying to convince themselves that what they had when they were sixteen wasn’t everything. That it shouldn’t have been forever. And Betty is exhausted from trying to convince herself of this. 

“You sure, Jug?”

“Shut the hell up,” he growls, in an uncharacteristic display of anger. 

“You have no right. No right to interfere anymore. You broke my heart, you know.” 

“I know.” 

(She does. His teary face on “I think we should break up, Betty” is burned into her brain. And her traitorous mind plays an endless loop of “You told me to go out with him!” “And you listened.”)

“I should be mad at you, I should hate you, I should never forgive you!”

No. No, he shouldn’t. Betty stands, and takes it. She deserves all his hate and then some. 

“I know.” 

“Stop saying that!” he growls. His pacing becomes more frantic, his eyes darker. 

She groans, flopping herself against the wall and tipping her chin up in frustration. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Jug. What do you want from me?”

* * *

(She would admit she wasn’t exactly tracking where his pounding footsteps had been. And she hadn’t been looking at him, but the atmosphere changes when she feels him around her. In front of her.)

He’s close now. 

Her heart pounds.

His hands close onto her face, like they had so many times, and she leans in. 

This kiss is softer. 

It’s gentler, like it was five years ago. 

She doesn’t understand. 

But she basks. If this is all she is ever going to get again, she throws caution to the wind and presses her palms to his cheeks, slips her tongue into his mouth and hears him groan.

It’s a sound she relishes.

She’s honestly not sure how long they stay there, but suddenly she’s being picked up and slammed into the opposite wall, and his lips are everywhere. Butterflies explode in her belly, and she feels warm, alive, in motion. 

She lets out a moan, and instantly regrets it, because it breaks the spell. 

He yanks away from her with force, his pupils wide and lips swollen.

His eyes are startled, and he touches a finger to his lips.

“ _ Christ _ …” he breathes.

Betty is lost on what to do, or what to say. What does a person even do in this scenario?

Jughead looks at her, again, like she betrayed him. She can barely meet his eyes, but it’s only a second before he stalks away, and she sinks to the ground. 

Her head falls to her hands and she groans. 

That  _ feeling _ , the feelings of being alive. 

She’d felt it with him, and it makes tears spring to her eyes, because she’d nearly forgotten. 

For five years, she had been sleepwalking, and here and now, she feels alive. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


For a serial killer, GP confesses easily. 

Reggie brings Veronica to the station, at her insistence. He looks frazzled, at least ten years older than when she saw him last. He doesn’t hate her, apparently. 

Veronica sits primly in one of the dirty station chairs, staring straight ahead. 

“It’s like she’s a statue ever since it happened. Or, like, a robot. She barely talks, eats, sleeps. I’ve tried...everything I can think of. She won’t talk to me.”

Reggie’s face is creased in worry, and Betty is glad Veronica has found someone who cares so much about her. 

She matters to him. They’re happy. 

She recognizes this with no small amount of jealousy, but Betty can only be happy for Veronica from afar now, so she’ll take it. 

  
  


* * *

Veronica’s been told. Reggie was the one, and it was a simple “They got him, Ronnie. He’s going away for a long time.” 

She had walked away. Stony, silent. Hard to tell if she’d even heard. 

Reggie moves to follow him, but Betty holds out a hand, stopping him in his tracks, and goes instead. 

It doesn’t take long to find her. 

She’s sitting against the wall, and that’s Betty’s first clue. Veronica Lodge did not sit on the floor in dingy police stations against filthy walls. 

Her eyes are dry, though. She’s not crying. It’s worse. The look in her eyes is beyond devastated, which is what gives Betty the courage to move up and sit next to her. 

It’s just silence for a few moments, but it’s softer than it was before.

Veronica’s voice comes, “I don’t want you here.”

Betty nods. “I know.”

She lifts a hand to her former best friend’s arm and squeezes. 

Just that, but it breaks a dam.

And then the tears spill free, and Betty wraps an arm around the shaking shoulders.

Veronica has survived without her for five years. But she doesn’t have to. 

_ Betty and I come as a matching set. You want one, you take us both.  _

And on a dingy police floor, she feels more at home than she has in five years. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


There’s just over one day left in Riverdale, and Betty has to break up with Derek.

She knows it, has known it since The Kiss. 

He’s a good guy. He deserves better. She just can’t give him better. 

She believes, or wants to believe, that there is someone who will treat him well. Who will feel butterflies when he kisses her. Who will let him take her heart.

She can’t let him take hers. Hers is already taken, was when she was five, by a little boy with a crown beanie and holes in his shoes. 

She’s never gotten it back, and she doesn’t want it back.

So if being in love with Jug means she waits for the rest of her life, then she waits. 

* * *

  
  
  


Derek cries, just a little.

He doesn’t understand, and Betty gets it. 

He asks how they were fine before they got here, and breaking up now. He asks what he did.

Betty can only shake her head and tell him they weren’t fine. It’s not him, it’s her.

He asks if Jughead has anything to do with it, so maybe he was never completely oblivious. 

And lastly, in a bout of what may be considered cruelty, but is nothing less than what she deserves, he tells her Jughead will never love her.

And he may be right, but she will still love Jughead. 

Five, ten, fifty years from now, she will still only love Jughead and so she sets Derek free. 

  
  


(Three years later, she gets a wedding invite from him. She doesn’t attend but she sees the pictures. He looks deliriously happy, an expression she has never seen on him, and she knows she did the right thing.) 

* * *

  
  
  
  
He’s different. 

Maybe it’s just the town where he grew up, but Hannah knows Jughead’s acting different.

It’s been seven months only, but she really likes him.

He’s sweet and kind and gentle. They could have a future. She wants a future. 

And back home, they had been okay. 

Jughead still interacts with her the same way, but the energy has shifted. It has from the moment he laid eyes on Betty.

Hannah knows the scant details of their history, but nothing in depth. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it, and she had respected that. 

But now he looks at Betty with such an odd expression in his eyes. He has never looked at her like that, but she  _ wants _ him to, more than anything. 

And that, in specific, is what leads her to Kevin Keller’s door. 

He’s more than surprised to see her, she still barely knows him, but she barrels in. 

“I need to ask you about Jughead. Or, more specifically, about Jughead and Betty.”

He hesitates. “I’m not sure I’m the one you should be asking.”

She nods. “You are. You are the only one who may give me a straight answer to my question.”

Kevin sighs. “Which is?”

Hannah picks at the chipped polish on one of her fingernails. Jughead had liked the color, had picked it out on a trip to the drugstore. Hannah wore it all the time, because she liked him.”

“They were a couple, right?”

Kevin nods. “Before, yes.” 

“And now?”

He looks confused. “Now? Hannah, they broke up five years ago.”

“I know but...I don’t think they ever really did.”

Kevin’s brow smooths, some signs of understanding showing. He wraps an arm around her and leads her to a chair. 

She sighs, picking at a piece of hair. “I like him, Kevin. I really like him.” 

Kevin nods. “I know you do.”

“But it doesn’t matter, does it? Even when they’re not a couple, they’ll always be a couple.” 

Perhaps in retrospect, she wants him to disagree. Wants him to tell her she’s wrong, and that Jughead does love her and she has nothing to worry about. 

But he’s silent, and she knows what that means. On some level, maybe she’s always known. But it means there’s only one way forward, and she isn’t looking forward to it. 

“I’m sorry, Hannah,” Kevin offers. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think either of them planned it to be this way.”

She nods. “I know, Kevin. I know.”

* * *

  
  


Betty sleeps alone now, but it barely makes a difference. She still hears the knock the second it sounds, and she’s still at the door in a heartbeat. 

He looks angry, and he pulls her out into the hallway without a word. 

Oh. He doesn’t know she broke up with Derek. 

And by the look on his face, he won’t give her much chance to talk. 

It’s an accurate guess, because he doesn’t. He launches into a tirade and she catches only bits of it, but  _ Hannah broke up with me _ stands out. 

“Hannah...broke up with you?” she interjects softly. 

He nods hard. “Because of  _ you _ , Betty. Because she said…”

He cuts off, and her mind tries to fill in the blank. Had he told her about the kiss? Or the succeeding kisses? 

“You...told her?”

  
He jerks back as if she’s struck him, and shakes his head. “I didn’t. She just...broke up with me.”

“I’m sorry.” It feels a tiny thing to say, but it seems to fill Jughead with rage, because he launches into the story unprompted.

About how he had come home and her things had been packed. About how she had told him that she was going back home without him, that it was over, and he knew why. 

He had played dumb, but she hadn’t let him ignore it. “We’re over because of Betty, Jughead.”

What about Betty, he had said. Betty was irrelevant.

(It flattens her inside, but she says nothing.) 

She should stay, Jughead had told Hannah, because she loved him. And he had added in:

“Hannah….I  _ do _ love you.”

Hannah had smiled, and Betty knows it was a sad smile. 

“Maybe, on some level, Jug, that’s true. But not in the same way. And it’ll never be the same way. You’ll never love me the way you loved her.” 

  
  


The words feel almost too good to be true, almost beyond belief. 

He loves her like she loves him? Could it be, possibly?

  
  


But the Jughead in front of her is angry, and spiteful. No offerings of love or forgiveness, just hard eyes and sharp words. 

It’s the angry, spiteful Jughead that storms up to her, gathers her against him, kisses until she’s out of breath. 

And on the first breath she takes in, she whispers, “I broke up with Derek.” 

Jughead steps back, his eyes wide. 

“ _ Why _ ?” he hisses. 

It’s confusing, for a start. 

“Why?”

He nods, lets her go. She feels the loss of warmth instantly, but he’s retreating, closing himself off more and more. 

  
  


“Why won’t you...why won’t you leave me alone!” he yells. 

“I did!” 

“No, you didn’t! Not for five damn years. You’re always in here,” he slaps the side of his head. 

“And you won’t let me move on!” 

“You told me, Betty! You told me you didn’t love me!”

This feels like a moment to be honest, more honest than they have been before. 

“I lied.” 

“Well, you need to stop. Just stop.” 

“I can’t! Don’t you think I’ve tried? Do you think this is what I want?” She skirts up to him, plucking up all her courage, and takes his face in his.

This is it, she realizes. 

Ten years from now, fifty years from now, it will hinge on this moment. She’ll tell him, and he’ll feel the same or he won’t. 

It’s an end, or it’s a beginning. 

But she’ll tell him and the chips will fall. 

So she takes his face in his, strokes his cheeks, and jumps in. 

“You’ll hear this. I love you. I have always, and will always love you. And you love me too.” 

And then, like he had done to her, she leaves. 

But this time, she leaves with hope. 

She has something for him. 

And if he accepts it...well, then they go from there. 

* * *

  
  


It’s their last day in Riverdale.

He’s come to pack, ostensibly, but more likely to lie down, to try to make sense of the swirling thoughts in his head.

He sees it as soon as he reaches the door. 

It’s unwrapped, with a note pinned to it. 

It’s left on his door, and the note simply says “Jug. I’m sorry. B.”

Sorry for what, specifically, he’s not sure. But his hands close on what’s underneath, on the worn gray cloth. 

His heart skips, then takes off racing as he picks it up, clutches it to him, inhales it like oxygen. 

It says everything, and he knows it. 

He runs his fingertips along the edge of the beanie she’d made for him.

She’d kept it. She’d kept it for five years. 

And he has, by his best estimation, thirty minutes to find her before she’s gone.

* * *

  
  
  


(It ends. Or maybe it continues, as it was always meant to. She sees him. He sees her.

He smiles. She smiles back. 

He touches her cheek. 

And it goes from there.) 

* * *

  
_  
Look at this heart shaped wreckage  
What have we done?  
We've got scars from battles nobody won  
We can start over, better  
Both of us know if we just let the broken pieces  
Let the broken pieces go_   
  
  


* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S SO SCHMALTZY. 
> 
> You know how people sometimes modestly say "I know it's bad but...."
> 
> Well, here's something you probably don't know about me. I am a lifelong cynic. Like, notably cynical about everything. So when I write super romancey scenes, I'm thinking equal parts "yes i need resolution and bughead being together" and "god this is probably so romancey and stupid" 
> 
> Anyhow. Hope you enjoyed! This story was fun! 
> 
> Also, tomorrow I will hopefully upload the last chapter of no one else is singing my song, so look out for that!

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I have to be honest, I'm the one writing this, and I super don't care what happened to Hiram and Hermoine. They ain't as bad as Penelope Blossom, but that don't mean they good. 
> 
> Also, I am kind of thinking this is the way they'll choose to go in canon. If you haven't been able to tell by, you know, all my writing, I am an angst writer, so I will actually enjoy some angsty bughead. And watching them find their way back to each other will be just *chef's kiss*
> 
> That is not to say that I support this very lazy writing, though.


End file.
